


Now we restart, we recreate

by Ilrona



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, For the evil space boyfriends, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 19:51:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7282363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilrona/pseuds/Ilrona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after the final defeat of the First Order, Hux lives with Kylo Ren in a house on a nameless planet deep in the Unknown Regions. They’re alive, safe and comfortable. It could be worse. They're even sort of happy.</p><p>Then one day Hux suddenly thinks: Wait, how did this even happen? Surely this is not the life they're meant to be living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now we restart, we recreate

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](https://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/4613.html?thread=11077637#cmt11077637) at the TFA kink meme.
> 
> Title is from the lyrics of ‘Sprouts of Time’ by Angra.

The rain on this planet is not like the rain Hux remembers falling from the grey skies of Arkanis. This rain is very cold. Every drop that falls onto the back of his hands as he steers the speeder home feels like a little shard of ice. He isn’t wearing his gloves now – one of the few relics of his life as General Hux of the First Order, now very worn. He would die before he throws them away. Why did he forget to take them this morning? Must be Ren’s fault. He stops the speeder for a moment as he pushes the hair out of his eyes – it’s too long now. The sky is filled with heavy, purplish-blue clouds, hanging above him like overripe fruits.

Ah. He remembers now. Ren told him, sitting at their table and eating his morning soup:  _Take your raincoat._ Hux glanced out, and saw that the sky was a sweet bright blue color. No clouds. Hux scoffed, then continued brushing his teeth.  _I can sense the rain. My scars hurt,_ Ren continued, and the way he sounded, as if he thought that what he said was some terribly profound wisdom Hux should feel honored to hear, made Hux feel irritated. He purposefully didn’t take the raincoat, and in his annoyance he forgot about the gloves.

He sighs in relief when their house appears behind the tall trees with their grey bark and red leaves. During the warmest season the trees let them take their fruits, which have a hard peel and they reveal their delightful scent only when cut in half. Hux uses their sour-sweet juice to make desserts, and Ren always eats too much, and then he lays down and doesn’t move for hours. He even falls asleep sometimes. Hux has to wash the dishes alone when that happens.

He puts the speeder away and walks into the house, wiping his boots on the doormat.

“I’m back!” Hux shouts as he closes the door.

“Okay!” He hears Ren shout back. Hux doesn’t see him, but he thinks the sound must come from the kitchen.

“I’m going to take a shower now.”

“I warned you about the rain, didn’t I?” Ren asks meanly. Hux scoffs and doesn’t deign to answer.

The shower is blessedly hot. Hux can’t help but moan in delight as he scrubs the dried mud from his wrist. He has a brief daydream about Ren joining him, lapping up the drops of water from his shoulders and his neck, maybe even – Hux feels himself blush at the thought and bites his lower lip – take Hux's cock into his soapy hand, washing him and teasing him at the same time.

The fantasy is cut short when his stomach growls.

He grabs one of the bathrobes hanging near the mirror after thoroughly drying himself. It must be Ren’s, because it’s too big for him, especially at the shoulders. It does reach his knees easily, though, so it’s not that bad. He wipes at the foggy mirror with his palm to glance at his face. He looks – good, he thinks. Healthy. He hates to admit but he thinks he used to look worse on the Finalizer. His hair is longer, brushing his ears. Now there are freckles from the sun all over his nose and cheeks. He doesn’t have to use make-up to hide the dark circles under his eyes, because there are no dark circles.

He still has nightmares, sometimes. Nightmares about the Finalizer blowing apart, about General Organa pointing a blaster at his chest, about being cut in half by a red lightsaber, about dying on Starkiller with a bleeding Ren curled up against his side – only the first one was something that actually happened, but that didn’t make the others feel any less real in the world of dreams. But those nightmares, especially nowadays, were few and far between, and even when he woke up with tears trembling in his eyes and his whole body shivering he always managed to fall asleep quickly again, with his body in Ren’s arms and Ren’s calming murmurs in his ear.

General Hux used to be an insomniac. What happened to Hux that he can now sleep so much?

The dinner is two sausages from the market and salad made from the few plants in the garden that grow during this season. There’s a glass of blue milk as well. Ren stares at him as he eats, his dark eyes curious, too intent. It baffles Hux. It’s not like Ren has never seen him eat before. Still, he lets Ren watch. Hux is chewing on a piece of sausage – it's nerf meat today – when Ren speaks:

“You left your gloves on the table.”

“Yes, I noticed,” Hux says. He drinks from the glass, licks the blue milk off his lips. Ren’s eyes soften, though they don’t lose their intensity.

“There’s a hole on one of the gloves. On the little finger. I could sew it tomorrow, I was planning to fix my gardening pants anyway, so. If you want to. I would be glad to do it.”

Hux doesn’t do anything dramatic like lets the knife fall from his numb fingers or break the glass. He doesn’t do anything. But he feels like there’s a widening hole in his stomach suddenly, like a black hole ready to devour the galaxy. The seat of his chair doesn’t feel like it’s there; why is he not falling down?

Hux blinks once, twice, three times. Swallows. Takes a deep breath. Smiles a little at Ren when he notices Ren’s confused, slightly worried frown. It can’t be a very reassuring smile, because Ren’s frown only gets more worried.

There was, back when Hux was a general, a holodrama. Typical Imperial propaganda made a few decades ago, with the protagonists the dutiful officers of the Empire and the antagonists the vile Rebels all killed at the end of the film. It wasn’t particularly good, too melodramatic and too focused on love as a positive, inspiring force for Hux’s tastes. Hux thinks about it now only because he remembers an argument between the two main characters. After one of them is wounded in a raid against a Rebel base the other tries to tell her how much he loves her, and he says this, or something very close to this:

“Don’t you know that I love you? That I would jump in front of a blaster for you, and I would go to the farthest planets in the Unknown Regions to find you, and that I would clean your boots with my bare hands and sew the buttons back onto your uniform if they ever fell off?”

It was the sewing back the buttons part that made Hux have a little crisis in his room after his shift, hating himself for feeling… whatever it was he was feeling. He sat down onto his bed. Ren, at that time, was nothing but a bitter rival, and there was nobody anything close to a lover in his life. He had a droid that took care of his clothes. It was the stupidest, most inexplicable idea. But Hux thought: Wouldn’t that be… nice? He couldn’t explain it. He, the one who used words like the deadliest weapons – he had no words for what he wanted, and why he wanted it. He was alone, and stronger and more successful because of his loneliness. But at that moment of ridiculous, shameful weakness he just thought it would be nice. To have someone who loves him enough to want to sew his clothes. How nice that would be.

Now, in their house on this planet so deep in the Unknown Regions that it doesn’t appear on any map, Hux thinks: Oh. Oh no. Oh, what the fuck.

“How did this fucking happen?” Hux shouts suddenly, and flinches at how ridiculous he sounds – hysterical, almost. Ren doesn’t flinch, just continues to look at Hux with his big worried eyes. “Why are we – fuck. What are we doing?”

Ren doesn’t say anything.

“Don’t you think this is ridiculous, Ren?”

“What?” Ren asks.

“We aren’t supposed to be – eating like this.” Hux screws his eyes shut, embarrassed at himself. At how incoherent he is now. He isn’t supposed to behave like this. Why can’t he find the words to explain what the problem is?

“We’ve been eating like this for years, Hux. Is there something wrong with the food? I haven’t used that spice in months, but last time you said you enjoyed it.”

“The food is fine. It’s good,” Hux says quickly. “I just mean – don't you remember how it worked when we were the commanders of the First Order? We didn’t. Uh. We didn’t make food for each other, or had a garden, or, fuck, sew each other’s clothes.”

“We are no longer commanders of the First Order. The First Order doesn’t even exist anymore. Things have changed, Hux, and so have we. That’s how it works.”

Well, yes. That sounds very reasonable, if Hux wants to be honest. Logical. Hux feels a little calmer, but not much.

“And you are okay with that? Don’t you miss how it used to be? When we had all that power – when we stood in front of an army, so eager to conquer the galaxy and wipe disorder from it once and for all?”

Ren gives him a wistful smile that makes Hux’s heart clench painfully.

“Yes, of course. It would have been glorious. I wanted it a lot, too. But it wasn’t meant to be. I suppose that’s all you’ve ever wanted, right? I understand if it hurts a lot for you. I guess I’m more used to it – to my whole identity changing. I was once the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, then later I was not. I was once Snoke’s apprentice, but that’s gone with his death as well. Now I’m here, with you.” He falls silent. He is hesitating, it’s clearly written onto his face. “I think I would like it if I remained this for the rest of my life. Your husband.”

What, Hux thinks. He must have heard it wrong.

“You’re absolutely not my husband.”

“Not officially,” Ren shrugs. He looks, somehow, both uncertain and smug. “But I’m sort of your de facto husband. Am I not?”

The terrible, galaxy-shattering thing is that he sort of… is. They do live like a married couple. Hux tries to find something they’re not doing that married couples should do and he can’t find anything other than raising children.

“I hate this,” Hux mumbles, pushing the plate away, his appetite gone. Instead he buries his face into his hands, closing his eyes. He doesn’t struggle when Ren moves his chair next to him and then pulls him into his lap, arranging his pliant body until he’s straddling Ren’s thighs.

“I know you wanted so much more, Hux,” Ren whispers, pressing a kiss against his still closed eyelid. “But this is the will of the Force. There’s nothing we can do.”

“The will of the Force!” Hux resents both Ren and the Force in that moment. He wants to climb off his lap, but his limbs feel so heavy, and Ren’s lap is so comfortable, so sturdy, almost like a throne. Hux couldn’t fall off even if he tried. “Why did the Force want you to betray the Jedi and kill your father, why did it want the billions of beings in the Hosnian System and so many others to die for nothing? Everything we have done – we have done some terrible things, Ren. It would have all been worth it, if we had the chance to remake everything we have destroyed to make it better. To make what was once faulty and corrupt perfect. But if the First Order is gone – why did the Force let us rise and gain power at all?”

He feels bile rise up in his throat as he says it out loud, but the words, as much as he loathes it, don’t feel like a lie. For years after their escape from the final battle – the Finalizer blowing apart just before Ren’s Upsilon shuttle, now covered with ivy in the back of the garden, jumped into hyperspace – Hux had dreamt about resurrecting the Order. But later it became evident that their enemy won’t make the same mistake they had made after the defeat of the Empire: they won't underestimate them. There was no Military Disarmament Act this time. The Republic nipped every attempt to remake the Order mercilessly in the bud. They put their loathsome agents everywhere: not even planets like Eriadu or Arkanis were free from them – especially not them. General Hux and Kylo Ren had a bounty worth more credits than most people could ever know what to do with (Hux’s was four times as much as Ren’s, which offended Ren deeply when he saw it on the HoloNet).

Hux was too young when the First Order was born. Later, when he was older, he had the chance to shape it, make it more powerful, Starkiller a wonder of technology the Empire couldn’t have even imagined. But, now he has to realize, he has no idea how to start something. He could continue, make something that already was even better, but he can’t build something from nothing. But if he had the soldiers, the credits, the materials… There’s so much he could do – with Kylo Ren, the great Force-user standing next to him –, he has so much potential, the weapons he could make, if he could be a general once again, and then, later, as Emperor Hux–

“The will of the Force is not something humans can understand,” Ren says gently. Hux rolls his eyes. Ren smiles at him, fond and patient. That’s wrong as well. Ren doesn’t smile like that. Except… has he not been smiling like that for years now?

Ren is different now, too. Happier, quite simply. He doesn’t use his lightsaber to destroy things in his pathetic fits of rage – it rests, turned off, somewhere in the darkness of the wardrobe, gathering dust. He doesn’t complain about the Light and the Dark tearing him apart. He has no new scars born in the battlefield. There are no battlefields anymore, not for them, at least. The new scars Ren has are only small things that disappear quickly; now there’s one on his right thumb from a thorn that pricked him during gardening, and several thin lines down his back as Hux scratched him during sex.

“I won’t give up,” Hux vows, even as he asks himself: Has he not given up already without even really noticing it? “The First Order rose from the ashes of the Empire… why can’t a next, even greater power rise from the ashes of the First Order? We used to be so much, Ren. We can’t… just idle here uselessly, doing nothing, for the rest of our lives.”

Ren remains silent, no longer smiling. He must know that Hux is not truly convinced either. He used to be, though. Once upon a time his fanaticism was unparalleled, his drive stronger than anyone else’s, his visions of a future of glory and order not a hopeful what-if but a bone-deep certainty. Where is this fire now? His strength, his conviction must have been sapped from his soul during those years, until the only thing that remained is the regret for what could have been and the love he feels for Ren–

Oh. He should be shocked and outraged, Hux thinks, but he can’t gather enough strength to feel anything but annoyed resignation. He should have noticed the symptoms earlier, because surely there must have been some – but what could he have done? This was inevitable: it had to be. They were the only two humans on this whole forsaken planet, living for years in the same house like two prisoners, so far from everything else. It isn’t as if either of them is particularly deserving of being loved.

“Your hair is getting longer.” Ren reaches for his own hair and takes the tie out, his dark hair falling onto his shoulders. He takes Hux’s hair into his hands – Hux lets him; what does anything matter anymore? – and puts it into a very tiny ponytail.

“Oh,” Ren says. Then he laughs, almost like a giggle but rougher. “You look silly. This is not a good look.” He frees Hux’s hair from the ponytail and remakes his own hair. The movements of his hands are quick and practiced. Hux remembers many times watching Ren do this: sitting on their bed before going out to sit in the middle of their sun-drenched garden and meditate; before cooking; before falling onto his knees to take Hux’s cock into his hot mouth.

When Ren is finished with his hair, he puts his big hands on Hux’s neck and leans closer. Hux tilts his head to kiss him. It’s a slow, dry, closed-mouthed kiss. But it’s so gentle it makes Hux want to cry – he doesn’t cry, but he does swallow quickly, the shift of his throat felt by Ren’s hands, or maybe Ren feels his sudden confused distress with the Force because Ren leaves his lips and makes a soothing, cooing sort of sound.

If Ren could change from the son of Rebel heroes into the bane of the Resistance then could Hux, prodigal son of the Empire, leave his dreams of governing the galaxy behind forever? Will the Force allow them to live the rest of their lives – several decades – alone and together in hiding, alive and safe and comfortable – happy, even? Will the Force let these hands, red with the blood of uncountable beings who all died for nothing, do nothing but hold each other and stir the pot of bantha stew, squeeze the juice from the fruits and fluff up the pillows in their bed, play dejarik and pull weed from the fertile dark soil of their garden?

Nobody on the planet knows who they are but the other. This nameless planet that has no spaceport, that doesn’t use credits but has its own local coin, that doesn’t speak Basic or read Aurabesh – no one will ever find them, as long as they don’t leave.

It’s a ridiculous idea. After everything the First Order had done – history will never forget the destruction of a whole star system – Hux should have either taken his deserved throne or died as a hero or martyr in battle. Kylo Ren, who has more power and potential in his little finger than can be found on entire planets, isn’t meant for such a mundane life either, even if he seems happier than he was when he had the weight of a magnificent destiny on his shoulders.

But here they are. The will of the Force, or whatever.

Hux wiggles a little on Ren’s lap, getting more comfortable, feeling small sitting on Ren’s huge body but not minding it as much as he should. His arms wrap around Ren’s broad shoulders and he sighs. He thinks, hating himself so much for how warm it makes him feel: this is a good surrender.


End file.
